ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: From Knight-Ridder/Tribune The Washington Post and The New York Times
NOTE: Lede
The only solid information about TWA Flight 800 came from the grisly ledger being compiled Thursday off Long Island, where more than 125 bodies were recovered.
Federal law enforcement authorities launched a massive investigation, operating under the assumption the disaster was the result of sabotage or terrorism.
The crash looks to be the result of ``a bomb,'' said a senior law enforcement official. ``We are assuming, at least in law enforcement, that it is a bomb. We could be wrong, but we have to pursue it as a crime.''
Beyond that, Thursday was a day of floating puzzle pieces, of sound bites from terrorism experts, and of President Clinton cautioning a nation to keep its speculation in check.
With no evidence to suggest that mechanical trouble triggered the midair explosion, supposition rushed in to fill the vacuum.
``When an aircraft explodes in midflight, you naturally think about terrorism,'' Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake, said. ``But we don't have now any hard evidence that suggests what the cause is.''
Law enforcement and aviation officials were particularly perplexed by an unidentified ``blip,'' signaling some object, that appeared on air traffic control radar near the plane just before its crash, a senior law enforcement source said. Authorities were repeatedly replaying recordings of the radar transmission ``but we are stymied. We can't figure out what caused that blip.''
A senior administration official said government investigators' best guess was the blip was ``an anomaly'' or irregularity on the radar screen. It will be studied carefully over the next few days.
The radar blip, and some eyewitness accounts describing something resembling a ``shooting star'' before the plane exploded, fueled speculation in television reports and elsewhere that the plane might have been struck by a surface-to-air missile.
Officials said they have not collected any evidence to support the missile theory. Terrorism experts at the Federal Aviation Administration said the plane was flying too high, about 13,700 feet, to be targeted by a hand-held surface-to-air missile such as a Stinger, according to sources close to the probe.
Federal authorities said they had to be concerned because the crash came on the eve of the Atlanta Olympics. In addition, New York is the site of the ongoing trial of the man accused as mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing. Ramzi Yousef, the suspect, is charged with plotting to simultaneously blow up 11 U.S. airliners over the Pacific.
On Long Island, about a half-mile from where the wreckage was being scooped up and categorized, Robert Francis, the vice chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said, ``It's still being treated as a potential crime scene by the FBI.'' If authorities determine the crash was caused by sabotage, the FBI would replace the NTSB as the lead investigative agency. Until then, they will work side by side.
Within hours of the crash, the FBI in New York had activated its joint terrorism task force, bringing in other federal agencies and the New York City police. By Thursday, there were 100 FBI agents working on the case.
Federal officials said there had been calls claiming responsibility for the crash. In a call to WTSP Channel 10 in Tampa, Fla. for example, a man with a muffled voice said the downing of Flight 800 was just the first in a series of attacks against American targets. Federal law enforcement officials said none of these calls were being taken seriously.
But nagging facts remained: A crew member on the plane's next-to-last flight said the huge aircraft was flying fine. And experts say no jumbo jet had ever exploded in flight due to mechanical problems.
``Airplanes don't blow up just like that,'' said Michael L. Barr, director of aviation safety programs at the University of Southern California. ``I've followed 747s since 1970, and I've never seen one blow up like that.''
In dozens of homes across the country and in countries overseas, family and friends of the passengers dealt with the news in many ways: Some prayed. Some were dumbfounded, suspended in disbelief.
``I'm sitting here like a zombie,'' said Pat Marion, after learning her 42-year-old daughter, Patricia Anderson, had been on the doomed flight. ``My husband walked down the hall [Wednesday] night and asked me what Patty's flight number was. I said it was 800. He said, `It just blew up in the air.'''
The 747-100 jetliner, the world's largest passenger jet, exploded and fell from a moonless sky at 8:48 p.m. Wednesday, 29 minutes after taking off from New York's Kennedy Airport. No indication of trouble, no ``nonroutine transmissions from the flight whatsoever,'' said TWA spokesman Mark Abels.
Through the night and all morning Thursday, the grim audit of the disaster at sea unfolded along the shoreline. The sea-to-land salvage operation had two distinct bookends, each similarly gruesome. On one end, about 8 miles offshore, Coast Guard trawlers used nets to sift the ocean surface, now littered with airplane debris and human remains.
On the other end of the line, a makeshift morgue was set up inside a Coast Guard hangar. Crews delivered the remains of the passengers there.
Rabbi Tuvia Teldon, who had come to the hangar to say psalms for the dead, said some bodies were intact and others were mangled. Some were still in their seat belts. ``The vulnerability of the human body becomes very apparent,'' he noted sadly.
Charles Wetli, the Suffolk County medical examiner, said many of the bodies were burned but he believes the passengers died ``in literally a heartbeat.''
LENGTH: Long : 105 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. One remnant of TWA Flight 800, the jumbo jet thatby CNBblew up Wednesday, floats in the Atlantic. color. Graphics: Chart by
KRT. Map by AP.